SAFEta Source is hosting a free webinar on SANE program peer review that is a must for anyone running a program. Particularly if you are struggling with how best to set up a peer review process or have not yet considered the benefits of peer review. The webinar will be held June 22nd at 2pm ET. Advanced registration is required to attend.

From the site:

Presented by Suzanne Rotolo, PhD, MSN, RN, SANE-A, SANE-P, CFN, and Lisa Gorham, BSN, RN, SANE-A, SANE-P, CFN, this webinar will offer education and practical solutions to clinicians who are looking for resources on peer review. At the end of the event, attendees will be able to:

1.    Describe the peer review process

2.    Identify reasons that peer review should take place

3.    Identify resources in particular practice arenas that can validate the peer review process

Suzanne Rotolo, PhD, MSN, RN, SANE-A, SANE-P, CFN has been a nurse since 1976. In 1981 she began working at Inova Fairfax Hospital/Inova Fairfax Hospital for Children in the Emergency Department. In 1991, she developed the first Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) Program in Virginia. In 1993, under Rotolo's direction, the SANE Program changed to the FACT (Forensic Assessment and Consultation Teams) Department, which now comprises the SANE program, the Domestic Violence program, the Physical Child Abuse program, and the Body Cavity Search program for the adult detention center. Rotolo has examined over 5,000 patients reporting sexual assault. She has been qualified as an expert in sexual assault over 150 times in Virginia, Maryland, Washington, DC, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Rotolo received her PhD from George Mason University in 2009, with her dissertation on the "Patterns of Genital Trauma in Sexually Assaulted Women." She is nationally certified as a SANE-P, a SANE-P, and is also a Certified Forensic Nurse (CFN). She is well published in the forensic field and is a founding member of the national and local chapters of the International Association of Forensic Nurses (IAFN).

Lisa Gorham, BSN, RN, SANE-A, SANE-P, CFN graduated from Northern Virginia Community College in 1996 and went on to receive her BSN from Old Dominion University. She had worked in the areas of geriatrics, mental health, addictions, research, pediatrics, and sexual assault. She has performed sexual assault examinations since 2002, lectures on the subject at George Washington University, participates in case reviews with a local county child advocacy center, and has jointly published an article on the topic of peer review as it relates to sexual assault examinations. She currently resides in Maryland with her family and works for Inova Fairfax Hospital's Forensic Assessment and Consultation Team.
 

First off, apologies for the paucity of posts as of late. I am smack in the middle of a 12 city/8 week tour of the US (because March and April are incredibly busy training months), and I simply haven't been able to keep up. This week is relatively quiet with only an overnighter for me tonight, so I hope to get more content up than I have over the past 2 weeks.

I have been asked by a couple readers about leadership coursework with nursing CEUs attached. I'm happy to report that Contemporary Forums has a couple low-cost options ($15/each) that might be a good solution. I recognize that many of the CEU programs out there in this arena can be very pricey, so these might be worth checking out.

The Nonprofit Risk Management Center has announced their 2010 webinar schedule. There's some interesting stuff on the list. If you're looking at risk management issues in your own program, you might want to consider the expenditure ($59) to attend one of their offerings. Some of the ones that caught my eye include:

• Ethics and Conflict of Interest Policies (3/3/10)
• Risk Management, Budgeting and Forecasting (4/7/10)
• Reputation Risk: What's in a Name? (8/4/10)

You can view the whole list here.

The SAFE TA project is hosting a free webinar on victim privacy October 13th from 2-3:30 ET. Susan Chasson, an IAFN past president and practicing SANE, and Jessica Mindlin, an attorney from the Victim Rights Law Center and NSVRC advisory board member, will be the featured presenters.

You can find all the info at the Forensic Health site, where I posted session and registration details this morning.

Just a reminder that we still have a handful of spots available for the leadership and management workshop we will be doing at IAFN in Atlanta this year. The workshop will be all day on Saturday, Oct. 24th. If you have any interest in attending, please register soon. Among the topics we will be covering:

• Budgeting
• Recruitment and retention
• Staff evaluation
• Succession planning and leadership development

The session will be a hands on workshop, using a case file and working in small groups. It should be a fantastic day, but we are almost full!.

Hope to see you there!

I'm excited to announce that I will be hosting a web forum on sustainability for OVC on September 30th from 2-3pm ET. The session is free and doesn't require advanced registration. You can find information on how to participate here. And for those of you who aren't available to participate live, there are opportunities to submit your questions in advance--everything is archived for later review.

Hope you'll consider participating...it should be a great discussion.

For those of you trying to get more SANEs trained, but unable to access a training in your area, or unable to afford to pay for nurses to travel, Duquesne is having an online SANE course beginning September 14th. Cost is $595, but IAFN members get a $50 discount. There are also group rates available. The course is entirely virtual, so there's no requirement to spend any time at Duquesne.

You can check out the information about the course here.

For those of you who will be attending the IAFN Annual Scientific Assembly, please note that we will be doing a full-day workshop on Saturday, October 24th for program managers (for some reason, they titled it NSVRC Leadership, which doesn't provide much info). The goal of the workshop is to provide program managers with tools and resources to more efficiently and effectively run sustainable clinical programs. Working in small groups, the participants will tackle many of the real issues that forensic programs face today; a faculty member will serve as a facilitator at each table, providing guidance as needed. A wide variety of management issues will be addressed throughout the daylong program, including budgeting, recruitment and retention, evaluating staff and identifying strategic allies and mentors. Participants will receive a fictional case file ahead of time that will serve as the basis for the day’s activities.

The session is limited to 45 participants, so please register early. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, as well. I hope we'll see you there--it should be an amazing session!

Over at the Forensic Healthcare site, Jennifer Pierce Weeks, current IAFN president, has a great guest post on evaluating SANE trainers. If you are responsible for finding someone to train your staff or are contemplating hosting a training in the future, Jen has some great tips on what to consider to make sure you get quality training without necessarily bankrupting your program in the process.

Many people are creating their own trainings as a way to add staff and/or maintain team competency. If you're looking to implement your own educational programs (or just want to fine tune the ones you already have running), consider checking out the National Victim Assistance Academy's guide, The Ultimate Educator (OVC) and its fantastic chapter on Adult Learning (PDF). I know I've mentioned this resource before over at the forensic health site, but it bears repeating here because it (and really the whole manual) is so helpful. Is there any less effective way to learn that simply being lectured at? This focuses on engaging your target audience, an art in and of itself.

"This NVAA workbook reviews the basics of training design, the differences between adult and child learners, and ideas for making presentations memorable. Topics include coordination, learning styles, presentation techniques, facilitation skills, lesson development, and session evaluation. Includes sample forms and worksheets."